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Playing Another Part

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DesViper
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Playing Another Part

Through a series of Leads and interrogations, you acquire a simple swap-bot from the Aether Pirates. You have a computer specialist (or yourself) reprogram the bot to do any number of things to the local Pirate Airship. You also add some shielding and weaponry to the bot, in the event you're found out.

You then send the bot on its way and it sabotages the airship, giving you a chance to rescue some hostages on board and/or some technology the Pirates had stolen. Yay! You Win! Pirates Lose! And all it took was a hacked robot to save/ruin the day.

...

Now, c'mon, that's a bit lame, isn't it? You just send the bot on its merry way and mission accomplished. There's a much more active and innovative way to go about this:

You pilot the bot.

Rather than send the bot on its way, you take over the bot, control its flight, weapons, shields, stealth systems, etc. You then play the first part of the mission as the bot. Think of it like the Kheldian shapeshifts: your main powers are turned off, in exchange for the powers of the new form. Your Martial Arts/Fire Bulwark [Tanker] loses all of his powers for those of the bot's: Auto Flight, chain guns, missiles, shock shield, magnetic shield, cloak, breach.

You then go through the instanced (or non-instanced) airship, avoiding discovery by its crew, while breaching the door with the hostages in it, then making your way to the main power, then detonating. You're then transferred back to your character back to the ground or at the entrance of the Airship, you bust through the failing ship, facepunching Pirates on the way, maybe you face off against the captain OR you avoid such a confrontation, make your way to the hostages, escort or otherwise extract them, and leave the ship before it crashes OR too many Pirates are on your tail and extraction becomes dangerous.

Which is better?

Such a system could have wide-reaching opportunities for CoT as a whole, but especially in the Mission Creator. This would allow you to tell stories without your character (or another's) being a part of it.

Imagine the President Marchand arc, where you go in the past to assassinate President Marchand of the Rouge Isles in order for Lord Recluse to take power. It always seemed awkward to be sent in the past to do such a thing when it could have wide time-wimey consequences. Instead, you could tell the story through the assassin that actually committed the act, in a flashback of sorts.

The issues:
-A player may not enjoy the powers given to the Other Role. The Pirates example is less, since it becomes a sort of stealth challenge, but playing a whole Arc as another character could be tasking. If the Other Role is a Gladiator (Brute) but you mostly enjoy ranged characters, it'd be annoying to be forced into another play style you're not big on. One solution could be to make the Other Role very powerful, but not so much that it's overpowered and feels like God Mode, but enough to counteract the issues with forcing another set of powers. Maybe you could give it some flexibility PCs don't have, like a totally free form selection of powers (without consequences of Tertiary Powers) (and I feel that free form selection of powers is a MUST for NPCs made for the mission creator). A well-crafted Other Role would also make it more enjoyable, but that's up to the creator of the Arc.
-I don't know how UE4 would handle shapeshifts or player transfers like this, but I'd be surprised if transformations were outside the range of UE4*

Thoughts?

I really feel like this feature would open up many possibilities for storytelling through Plots, Stories, and Arcs, inside and outside the Mission Creator.

*Note: KS update 28 mentions "monster play" as a form of PvP. This is where one character takes over a monster and pilots it while other players attempt to incapacitate or otherwise stop the monster's path of destruction. This indicates that such a system could exist in UE4, and that the Devs have thought of such a system, these aide to the feasibility of it.


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Darth Fez
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desviper wrote:
desviper wrote:

Which is better?

That is very subjective. Another way to ask this question is, "Would you rather do this mission as your character or as some other character (the robot)?"

It's fun to have a few missions like this, but on the whole I would prefer to play my character rather than a mini-game that is critical to mission success. Ultimately this amounts to a variation on using temp powers to complete a mission.

Also, yes, this is possible. We have seen Unreal tools demonstrations that show (~ 9:15) that 'games within games', which include such things as driving vehicles, is something UE4 can handle.

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I'm with Darth on this. Now,

I'm with Darth on this. Now, temporarily controlling something/one to accomplish a specific goal in a mish -- that interests me much more.

Spurn all ye kindle.

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It might be fun to have the

It might be fun to have the occasional opportunity to run through a mission playing as a "bot" or even the idea of running a "monster" against other players in PvP. But I probably wouldn't want to run through an unavoidable multiple mission arc and/or multi-hour trial that way.

Basically I wouldn't want to be forced into playing as something other than my own characters for prolonged periods of time if I didn't want to. To me that would become more like a classic arcade game (where my "character" was hardwired into the game like a Pac-man or some-such) instead of a MMO where I'm running my own uniquely created characters.

CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012

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Consider another perspective.

Consider another perspective....

if you've experienced the "become" devices in Champions online... you could very easily see how this concept could work, functionally.... and Practically... why not just make it optional?

like, you can go, guns akimbo, and it's a pain in the ass, but doable... or you can tinker with the found bot to infiltrate the base another way.....
or, maybe the bot is something already in the base, and because you "studied" the bot you found, you have the option to take control of the fresh bot you find inside the base...

I guess what I'm saying is..... don't hate on the idea, because you're not a fan of the hypothetical situation the OP discribed.

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For me, it's not the

For me, it's not the situation but the amount of time. Play as a character other than mine for a whole mish? No thanks. Hack a bot for about 30 seconds to mow down some unsuspecting mobs or to unlock a door from the other side so my character can get through? Sure.

Spurn all ye kindle.

DesViper
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So, how about the option of

So, how about the option of the other character. In the Bot example, as GhostHack mentioned, you've the option of botting in or guns a blazin.

And for the Marchand example, when entering the arc or even each mission, you have the option of playing as the creator-generated assassin (with all its perks) or yourself.

I just feel it could be a nice touch to tell a story through another character, rather than your present-day super.


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Oh yes, I'm always in favour

Oh yes, I'm always in favour of options. I wouldn't choose it, but if others wanted to do so, I don't have a problem with that.

Spurn all ye kindle.

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I too support the option for

I too support the option for something similar to "become" devices, though I would limit them to specific scenarios. Imagine a scenario where your character is constantly subject to radiation damage from a leaking reactor. You can either go in wearing a specially protective power suit (which may prevent you from using your powers but have its own set -- complete with rocket launcher), have a native resistance to radiation (maybe you eat cobalt-64 for breakfast), or constantly receive heals (self heal, regeneration, etc). all of these are options, though some may be better than others.

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Having an available "Path

Having an available "Path Option Query" for the player or player group where there is a prompt asking which option you want to follow through with (piloting aforementioned robot, sneaking into the airship, or tackling things head on) may allow for versatility and could allow players to chose their own superhero'ing way rather than being forced into completing the mission in a way they don't want (as mentioned earlier that sometime you just don't want to play something that isn't your character) or wouldn't fit their RP ideals (i.e. your barbarian character sneaking into the ship or your super spy tackling things head on).

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Warning:

Warning:
Branching Paths through content can very easily and quickly MULTIPLY the amount of content that needs to be produced (and QA tested) to verify that it (a) works, and (b) is bug free. Note that "working" does not imply "bug free" ... nor does the reverse.

A better question would be ... can MWM "afford" to do Branching Paths through their mission content?

As a corollary, I would make a point that if the content is Created Right The First Time with a Branching Paths structure in mind ... even if the Branching Paths are not "available" when the content is first produced and released, being able to come back later on and edit in additional Branching Paths to previously completed content would be something I'd want to see done as a STANDARD PRACTICE for content creation in City of Titans. Make it Easy To Modify so that you spend a little extra time up front but save yourself humongous heaping helping loads of time later on down the line(!) and you'll be creating a development environment in which content creation is never "finished" ... only abandoned ... like really good art.

THAT would be the brilliant way to do things on the back end, I'm thinking. The "trick" of course would be codifying the Standard Practices to be followed that would make this easy.


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I image it could be something

I image it could be something like this?

Red Player can use a Detour (different path)
but even Red Player has to eventually get back on the Interstate after 10 or so Levels. Or when a new Enemy group shows up in the Lore. ;D

And of course, once MWM has a good baseline going... try to add Small Icons to the side of a Quest, which denote.. Exploration, Delivery, Crafting, Confrontations, etc...

And if they really get in the swing of it, Have the Icon be a Bar that shows an approximate percentage for each. ;D
ex:

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Mini games are good and I

Mini games are good and I think almost needed for a game to have longevity. I like this idea.

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I agree with Redlynne's

I agree with Redlynne's position, having the infrastructure set on version 1.0, and adding "Another Part" added later, before or after release.


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I also like options as long

I also like options as long as they make sense. Example: My big dumb tank doesn't want to spend a minute hammering through a door so he asks his buddy to hack a bot (or fly one in from outside) to help.

Another (for more solo play): My detective guy rides in inside the bot, climbs out, sets it to Sentry the door (shoot anything that enters) so he has time to hack the enemy computer.

I would prefer that minigame-type stuff be embedded within the scenario rather than the whole scenario itself.

I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...

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There's a mission in Wildstar

There's a mission in Wildstar where you pilot a spider.. While it was a fun mini-game break.. I hated it. In Champions Online when you needed to pilot a Mega-Destroyer I hated it (I also hate vehicles in that game for the same reason).

Let PC's be PC's and NPC's be NPC's. If I want to play a robot with shields I can go create one.

Let all minigames be optional I say.

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JayBezz wrote:
JayBezz wrote:

There's a mission in Wildstar where you pilot a spider.. While it was a fun mini-game break.. I hated it. In Champions Online when you needed to pilot a Mega-Destroyer I hated it (I also hate vehicles in that game for the same reason).
Let PC's be PC's and NPC's be NPC's. If I want to play a robot with shields I can go create one.
Let all minigames be optional I say.

This also includes putting me into a forced "disguise" and clicking something to take a photo ;)

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